A Christmas Carol: New and improved
by Darkest Myth
Summary: Rather strange parody of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" using the FF9 cast - see interesting things from Steiners past!


**A Christmas Carol: Final Fantasy Style**

Chapter One: Quina's ghost

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Disclaimer: Final Fantasy and all related things are property of Square Soft. A Christmas Carol and all related things are property of Charles Dickens. 

A/N: I got bored, so I'm doing this. Yes, it's strange. Yes, it makes little sense. Yes, I forgot Cid wasn't an ooglop anymore while writing this. Yes, it has zilch to do with the real A Christmas Carol…. But alas, yes, I still like it.

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Killed by a severe bout of food poisoning, there was no doubt that Quina was dead. He was put in a casket and sunken in the pond where he liked so much to look for frogs, yes there was no doubt. He was dead. Anyone could have told you that, seeing as Quina was a very noticeable person and they would definitely have figured it out had he still been alive and bothering them all for food.

And of all people, Steiner knew he was dead. For they had been partners for many years, and friends, also. It had been a very sad event for Steiner, of course, but he was over it and prepared to go on with his life. After all, it was one less person he was forced to feed continuously… especially taking into consideration the huge appetite that Quina always had.

Being the very lazy fellow he was, Steiner never quite got around to changing the sign outside his shop window so that it did not include the name of Quina, so there it still stood seven years afterwards. People who had been coming to the business for many years now called Steiner by his name, while those less informed called him by Quina's name. Though he did not rather appreciate being called Quina, he did not care enough to do anything about it. It really was not **that** important.

Then again, who didn't know Steiner? He strutted around in that gruesomely rusty suit of amour, making it seem as though he hid in a shell from all humanity being the horribly solitary person he was. Weather and temperature seemed to have no affect on him… nothing, no matter how horrible, could crack that sheet of plating he wore. The fact that a holiday was about did not even seem to bother him as much as one might have thought it should have.

Because Steiner was such a horrible rude and solitary person, though one old woman did like him since he was the only person who bought her pickles, no one ever stopped to bother saying hello to him in the street. No one bothered waving at him, or asking him the time. Beggars avoided him and even ooglops seemed to avoid becoming in his presence. It could not have mattered less to Steiner, though, for all he cared about was that he got to wear his coat of rusty amour. Everyone was convinced Steiner was probably insane, but no one dared say it to his face.

So we come to a place where it's Christmas Eve. Steiner sits at his desk re-counting the stock, in the dark, but early, afternoon. He could hear the people outside, little children yelling about presents they would get, strange idiots who had eaten those pickles he liked so much making sounds of disgust. And then, of course, those people who could not seem to warm themselves up that cold winter day.

The door of Steiner's office was open so that he could keep an eye on his clerk, Zidane, whom was in a dismal little cell copying letters. Suddenly a voice was upon him, yelling merrily in his ear. "Merry Christmas, Uncle! Gwrok, Alexandria save you!" It cried. He immeaditly recognized it as being that of his nephew Cid. 

"Bah." Steiner replied flatly. "Genji gloves!"

Steiner's nephew was a small little thing in a cloak that was constantly representing different things. Once a human, than a frog, now an ooglop…

"Christmas Genji gloves, uncle!" Cried Cid. "I know you mustn't mean that; not with how much everyone hates Genji gloves!"

"Of course I do." Steiner replied as flatly as the time before. "Merry Christmas, what's so merry about it? You people are all poor enough, yet you go around celebrating it." 

"Oh fine than, Gwrok." Cid returned merrily as he implied Christmas to be. "What right do you have to not be considerate and act as though Christmas is in any relationship to Genji gloves? You're rich enough."

His suit of armor cutting off the circulation to his brain, Steiner was unable to think up a response to his nephew's reply. Instead he said "Bah!" And followed it with "Genji gloves."

"Can't you be a bit more cheery on Christmas, uncle?" Cid asked, "Instead of being so cross?"

"I can be nothing else." Steiner snorted. "I live in such a world that you people worship anyone who resembles bugs or frogs and all your recent kings and queens have been quite…. Ugly. Than you go to celebrate it all with 'Merry Christmas!'. What fools you are. If I had it my way you would all be burned and given to the pointy-hats, you would."

"Uncle Steiner!" Cid pleaded.

"Nephew." Steiner returned flatly and coldly. "Keep Christmas in your own way and let me keep it in mine. You can go off and eat pickles for all I care."

"Keep it??" Demanded Cid. "But you don't keep it!"

"Then allow me to release the bug spray upon it." Steiner said sternly. "Christmas never did any good for anyone, ever."

"There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say,'' returned Cid "Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round -- apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that -- as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, Steiner, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, Alexandria bless it!'' 

The clerk in the cell involuntarily applauded. Becoming immediately sensible of the impropriety, he poked the fire, and extinguished the last frail spark forever.

"You had better shut up," Steiner demanded of the clerk. "Or you'll have a nice Christmas being fired. As for you, Cid." He added, looking at his nephew. "You're quite a smart ass, why don't you start working for Brhane?"

"Steiner." Cid demanded, eyeing his uncle as though he would jump up and kill him at any moment. "Please come dine with us tomorrow."

Steiner said he would have nothing to do with such ridiculous activities and bid his nephew goodbye.

"Why cannot we just be friends, Gwrok?" Cid asked sadly. 

Shortly Steiner had managed to get Cid out of his face, had shut down the office after telling the workers they may have the holiday off, had gone to his house, had dinner, and was sitting in his chair, minding his own business, when suddenly he heard a knocker at the door.

Looking up he saw not a knocker, but Quina's face! Quina did not look at all ferocious or of the ghostly sort, no not at all. Instead he wore upon his face that look of pure stupidity that he had always had and showed he had no idea what was going on. Like a little pink too-too girl, Steiner snuffed his candle and ran to his room, bolting himself inside than becoming quite satisfied with the idea that Quina would not be able to bother him from there.

Presently Steiner sunk into his chair and listened as the bells above his head began to ring. _It's the ghost of Quina, great Pickles._ They topped, than began again in unison. Steiner idly remembered that he had read a documentary about haunted houses and that when possessed, bells in them often rang for no apparent reason. Then the cellar door burst open and Steiner nearly jumped out of his chair with a screech.

"Genji gloves still!" Cried Steiner. "It can't be him!"

Suddenly Steiner was knocked upon the ground with a force that neither of us can explain and doesn't remember anything up until the ghost was saying three more ghosts would visit him. Though that knowledge cannot be trusted either, seeing as he pasted out directly afterwards and Quina's ghost was forced to poor cold water on him to make him pay attention.


End file.
